


Heathers & Gargoyles: A Riverdale s3 rewrite

by Vaxileth



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Based on Heathers, Canon Rewrite, Dungeons & Dragons References, Rewrite, contains minor character deaths and graphic violence, incorporating heathers plot beats into riverdale with dnd flair, written like canon not like ship fanfiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-10-29 02:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20788820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaxileth/pseuds/Vaxileth
Summary: A game, a cult, a murder. Sounds like a stereotypical october for the town of Riverdale. Yet when Betty, Jughead, Veronica, and newly freed-from-juvie Archie are recruited to join the increasingly dangerous game of Griffins and Gargoyles, they find themselves dodging assassinations and deadly traps designed to keep them on a pre-determined story path. Left without the help of their brainwashed allies, the core four must work in the shadows to stop the rising body count and unmask the King of Gargoyles before their story is finished.





	1. Prologue

Prologue

The summer leading up to junior year was like so many others in Riverdale; days spent by Sweetwater River were long and hot. Fireflies doubled the stars in the sky and the scent of wood smoke hung on the midnight air. Pink-grey dawns, filled with the song of birds and dewy treks through the forest while dusks of deep golds and purples painted the skies above countless barbeques and fireworks. The town, for once, seemed happy. Normal, if they could ever grasp the concept of ‘normal’ again. At least… most of the town.

Only in private spaces and shadowy corners was the dark cloud hanging over the community mentioned, as if the town itself wanted to forget, wanted to push away the very thought another tragedy could happen to a child everyone knew, grew up with, and loved. Though the town believed his innocence whole heartedly, they forgot about him the way one forgets a traumatic memory; slow, reluctant, and silent.

In the spaces where his cloud loomed darkest, Betty worked as an intern for Mary Andrews, putting her legal and investigative prowess to test in a more lawful setting than she was used to. She spent her days reading through old case files, police reports, and transcripts of similar court cases, analyzing and decoding the vast arrays of information into easily digestible chunks. Shorthand and stenotypy became her new language and, though she interacted daily with her friends, the codes of court ruled her consciousness until the August hearing. 

On the other side of town, Jughead put the Serpents to work collecting the not-so-legally obtained evidence and testimonies they were used to. Vigilantism was almost a comfort in the wake of Archie’s hanging shadow, a line of work Jughead threw himself into fully. There was a normalcy to it, a sense of nostalgia that ate away the trauma and suffering they had endured in the years since entering high school. 

Hyperfixation eating the peripherals of his awareness, it wasn’t until the final weeks that Serpent King Jughead Jones realized the absence of many of his members. He expected Toni and Cheryl; they spent more time together these days than the rest of the gang, though Jughead didn’t mind. He’d be hypocritical if he did given the time he and Betty and spent alone. However, as August grew from summer gold to deep early autumn red, the absence of Sweet Pea and Fangs caught his attention first.

Jughead would visit their homes in the afternoons and evenings and most of the time, there was no one home. They were often missing from the Serpent gatherings and communal activities, and their reports were brief when he asked favors or gave them a task. By the final weekend of summer vacation, Sweet Pea and Fangs had garnered a following of a dozen young Serpents, high schoolers or younger. All missing when Jughead needed them, all caught returning home or showing up to community meetings late and covered in dirt and various forest remnants. 

Though Jughead wouldn’t have known, it wasn’t just the Serpents undergoing this odd shift in youth attention-span. Veronica witnessed it too as her speakeasy, La Bonne Nuit, came to life under the floors of Pops’. Summer jobs, like most small all-American towns, were the pinnacle of high school vacation culture, and Veronica graciously contributed by hiring many of her classmates to help work on the place. This was, after all, a place for all of them to recover from the tragedies befallen the youth of the town.

Yet, as with the Serpents, many of them started skipping shifts, missing work hours, seemingly uncaring about their work or their pay as August bloomed to life. Though Veronica was not an aggressive person by nature, when she confronted their lack of vigor, she often left frustrated with no answers and a short staff. With her own attention torn between her project and her unjustly imprisoned boyfriend, the progress of La Bonne Nuit slowed to a crawl. 

Veronica was not the only person frustrated by this; her father had taken an interest in the speakeasy's construction and was growing worse at hiding his impatience as the month progressed toward the looming trial. His heed had not gone unchecked, but Veronica ignored it for the time being, not wanting to confront the man who probably put her boyfriend behind bars. It wasn’t difficult to avoid him these days; after school concluded the previous year, he’d also vanished for periods of time. 

“Business stuff,” he always said, a strange answer as he’d usually explain what the business was to her. The mystery and curtness was unusual, making his curiosity in her own projects even more grating. She finally stopped him the day before the trial, his judgement entering the speakeasy after 24 hours or longer missing from home.

“Daddy.” She greeted him with a mirror of his increasingly formal demeanor. 

“Good morning, Mija.” He forced informality as he approached the counter where she stood, rubbing dark stain into the wooden top. The smile on his didn’t reach his eyes, the wrinkles in his crow's feet and heavy brow ridge remaining flat and expressionless, “How is everything going today?”

She didn’t answer him, side-eying his suit as she focused more on the counter. Though he wore suits often, he was more dressed up than usual, and Veronica could already feel the judgement at seeing her helping with the work. Instead she asked, trying to keep the malice from her voice,

“Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I had to have an emergency meeting with a business partner.” He was lying, Veronica knew, though she couldn’t prove it. She just could tell from the way his back straightened and his hands clenched and the vein in his neck pulsed against skin as he swallowed. 

“The same business partner that’s been dragging you away all summer, I presume?”

Her father let out a tense sigh, his eyes leaving her face. His shoulders slumped slightly and for the first time that summer he looked as tired as she felt. A manipulation tactic, yet Veronica couldn’t help feel that twinge of pity deep in her chest for her dear old father. She put down the stain rag and wiped her hands on the apron around her waist, the deep mahogany brown leaving streaks on the off-white canvas.

“We’re having a bit of… a setback,” He met her gaze again, his eyes sharp as he thought about his partner with clear scorn, “Their facility is not being built properly and they’re refusing to send their employees elsewhere. It’s wasting a lot of time and money. I thought you might be able to relate.”

Veronica physically shrunk inward, the passive-aggressive swing pulling the pity straight from her torso and her self-esteem with it. She wrung the rag through her fingers again, looking down at the counter. Angry fire smoldered in the pit of her stomach in the sting of his words and she shook her head,

“No, I’m sorry. Things have been progressing just fine here.”

“Hmm…” Hiram looked skeptically at the unfinished furniture and the sparse employees laying wooden planks on the raised stage, the centerpiece for the room. His scrutiny turned back to her stained hands and the dark, unfinished splotches of the bar counter, “Well, for your sake I hope so.”

“Why are you really here? To judge how quickly we’re getting this set up and running?” Hiram looked taken aback by her sudden bite but those smolders of anger were bursting to life now.

“Two days ago the facility that is being built outside of Greendale was broken into. I figured you should know, since you’re in the same boat.”

Veronica rolled her eyes at the guilting; she had already heard about the break-in. That’s why she was working and not preparing for tomorrow’s trial like she should’ve been.

“Thank you for your concern, but I think we’ll be fine.”

Their conversation dragged on with as few words as possible, filled with vitriol and disdain. Even the boys laying the woodwork into the stage glanced over at the tension every so often felt it. Hiram finally decided his chiding was over and left with tense shoulders and a silent goodbye, and Veronica wouldn’t see him until the next day in the trial.

The entire town appeared to crowd around the courthouse that morning, as many bodies as possible squeezing into the seats and the hallway to hear the case of their beloved golden boy. Betty sat with Archie, anxiety overwhelming her relief to see him as they brought him into the room, his mother on his other side clutching his hand as tightly as possible. Jughead and Ronnie sat directly behind him, happy to see him but as anxious as Betty to his left. This could be worse, he thought.

All summer he was back and forth between holding cells, interrogation and visitation rooms, and court. Whatever the sentencing was, Archie was glad this would be over with. He knew he was innocent. His loved ones knew, and from the supportive looks around the room, everyone else did too.

For six grueling hours, Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and the rest of the town of Riverdale sat through recounts of their recent tragedies. The death of Jason Blossom, Archie’s vigilantism, the Black Hood murders, and their apparent involvement in major crimes over the past two years.

The word ‘guilty’ stung the hearts of everyone in the room when the jury announced the verdict late that afternoon. Though the weight of reality was still a shock, Veronica knew as soon as the jury entered the room after deliberation. They made up their minds long before that…. Or had someone make it up for them. 

At Archie’s request, the four had one more day together, then he left, hauled away to juvie the day before the start of their junior year. That looming cloud returned, and the halls of Riverdale High felt empty, heavy, and dark. 

In that darkness, something new and dangerous grew; a monster with stone horns and skull mask. A game where everyone was a player, whether or not they knew it. It started as groups of nerds huddled around an upright-standing folder at lunch tables. Here and there a faint, excited whisper of demons and puzzles.

Jughead and Veronica often found their missing bodies among these secretive spaces. They’d started skipping their Serpent jackets and sports-branded sweaters for odd, costume-like clothing and black hood.

“We’re playing Griffins and Gargoyles.” Sweet Pea told Jughead one day when he’d tried to pry his way into the group.

“What’s that… like Dungeons and Dragons?” Jughead frowned, regarding the map spread out between the ‘players’. They exchanged nervous glances as he asked.  
“Um… kind of. But you have to be initiated to play.”

“How do I get initiated?” Not that he wanted to be… the question was more out of curiosity about his former family.

“You wait.” The unfamiliar girl behind the erected folder wall cut in before Sweet Pea could think to respond. Her blue eyes sliced through him under her shadowy black hood. “You wait for the Gargoyle King to call you.”

Veronica had a similarly chilling encounter when players brought the game to work. The Acolytes, so called for their worship of this mysterious Gargoyle King, multiplied like cockroaches over the first week of school. As a virus spreads, so did the game throughout Riverdale High, recruiting more and more players and attracting the “Deathknights” who watched the school grounds with stone masks and tattered black clothes. 

At the surface, it appeared to be just another fun roleplaying game. Underneath, though, lay a labyrinth of danger, destruction, and crime the town’s youth grew entangled in, unable to escape. It was not a game; it was anarchy.

The school became ground-zero for the cult-like following of the game, and Betty, Jughead, Veronica tried their best to navigate their first weeks of school together, away from the rest of their friends who quickly got sucked into the Gargoyle King’s clutches. Cheryl was among the loudest recruiters after being chosen for initiation early in the game. To their surprise, Ethel was as loud as the school’s resident HBIC.

Halls and classrooms became littered, eventually decorated, with iconography, various memorabilia, and art of the ‘game’. By the second Friday of September, kids were finding satchels and cards in hidden books and cracks in the walls.

That second Friday, a large cluster of kids gathered around the outside of Veronica’s home room, their whispers excited as they discussed their latest find. She tried not to pay too much attention to the conversation as she forced her small form through the throng, but anxious whispers of ‘kill’ and ‘plan’ and ‘escape’ assaulted her ears. She pushed it out of her mind. No, they’re talking about a game. This isn’t real.

Like usual, Veronica was early as she forced her way into the classroom, and there were few bodies in the room save for herself and the quiet outcast types that sat by themselves. She attempted a smile in their direction but, as expected, they didn’t return it. Instead, she took a seat at the front of the classroom, placing her books on the desk and sliding her bag under the chair. As she leaned over to do so, she caught sight of a small envelope on the floor, trapped partially under a front desk leg. The back where she expected to see a name or address was face up and blank, but she could tell there was something inside when she yanked it out from under the leg.  
The envelope was small enough to fit in her hand, yet a smooth wax of a black seal still pressed into the back enclosure, already open by the rail of paper tear stuck to it. The embossing on the seal was a figure squatting on its hands and knees. Two thin, tined antlers rose from its head, and large, stretching bat wings protruded from its shoulders, the span larger than the size of its body.

Though she knew this was someone else’s, Veronica’s morbid curiosity seized her hands and pulled the flap up. There was only one object inside; cardstock nearly the size of the envelope give or take a few centimeters. Pulling it out carefully, she immediately recognized the pattern on the back of the card as being from the game. It was the same pattern as those people found for quests. This was definitely not for her. As she turned it over, her breath caught in her throat.

The word “QUEST” scrawled in medieval-reminiscent script at the top in bold black letters. Underneath stood a painting of a knight or a soldier; a very young man in shining silver-steel armour encrusted with rubies. She did not recognize the symbol emblazoned in red across his breastplate and intricately depressed into the shield he held at his side. His eyes were a warm brown, his hair an intimately familiar shade of red-orange, and an even familiar still innocent softness to his features. 

He looked just like Archie.

Yet, that was not what shocked Veronica most about the card. At the bottom of the image, a cream-grey box held tet that, mixed with the boy looking so much like her beloved, sent shivers up her spine.

Kill the Red Paladin. 

The trill of the class bell rang through the room and more bodies shuffled in through the door. Fingers trembling, Veronica stuffed the card back into the envelope and that into the back of the textbook on her desk. She’d have to show Betty and Jughead later. For now, she pushed it out of her mind along with the other stresses of her life and pretended to be a normal teen for the day.

September swelled into autumn and left as dangerously as it began, whispers of “Kill the Red Paladin” cards popping up all over school. Betty often inquired parties she caught talking about it, the Acolytes running the games, the Deathknights that now warded the woods and public areas about it, but she met with the same answer each time.

They could not participate until they were initiated. 

Instead of forcing her way in, Betty took the route she knew best and snuck her way through, learning the patterns of the Deathknights and following them long into the nights. They lead her through the forest more often than not, winding trails snaking through trees and long back yards, always ending in the same place, an abandoned recreation center on the outskirts of Riverdale, near the detention center. The grounds swarmed with Deathknights like cockroaches. Betty was certain the Gargoyle King resided inside the building, but she never got close enough to see inside.

While she was busy tracking her way around the cult, Jughead and Veronica focused on Archie. As September wound down, he abruptly became unavailable for phone privileges, and each time they’d travel to visit in person, he had a new scar or bruise somewhere on his once boyish face. He wasn’t the only one, however, as the Serpents stuck in juvie also started appearing with mysterious black eyes and broken noses, even ones released at the ends of their sentences throughout September. 

Jughead and a group of older Serpents visited the detention center on the first day of October, waiting for their most recent member to get released back into their care. When he exited the building with the guards, his face looked the worst out of anyone, including Archie. His nose had broken and started healing out of place and he walked with a significant limp, hunched over his belongings. His lips were twice their normal size with scarred over cuts and untreated swelling.

They drove him home in silence and set him up in a group house watched over by Tom Topaz. The boys that lived there set to work helping tend to their brother’s wounds, some of them recovering from their own horrors from that detention center.

“What happened in there?” Jughead asked when the boy, Slash, started to relax into the environment. He was quiet at first, his eyes trained on the floor and his head shaking as if he were refusing to tell him, just as the others had. Jughead waited a few minutes in silence, but broke just as he made to stand up and leave.

“Fighting pits.” Slash muttered, still looking down. “They put is in fighting pits.”

“Dude-” One boy who’d been in detention previously tried to reprimand him but Jughead snapped to shut him up. If Slash wanted to speak, Jughead needed to hear,

“Like an underground wrestling ring?”

“No. MMA. Bare-knuckle. Whatever you can do to take down the other guy.”

“Why? Just for fun?”

“Lotta rich people come to watch. Place bets. Give us special names. It’s a game or something to them.”

Veronica had given Jughead the Kill the Red Paladin card for safekeeping and it was burning a hole in his pocket listening to Slash, “You’re all forced to fight? What about the other inmates, non-Serpents?”

“You’re asking about Andrews.” It wasn’t a question; Slash’s face grew dark at the memory of Archie in the pits, “Yeah… he’s their main man. The Paladin.” He spat the title with a small stream of bloody spittle. He motioned toward his nose as he continued “I couldn’t take him down like they asked. He knocked me unconscious.”

"Where in the center are the fights held?"

Slash shook his head. “No, they take us somewhere else. Somewhere old with a big pool.”

Jughead stood up immediately and scrambled for his phone to call Betty and Veronica, recalling the abandoned building Betty found the Deathknights operating out of. He joined her on her near-nightly trek through the trees after that, studying the building, occasionally finding the parking lot filled with shiny and out-of-place cars. The rich folk that played with the lives of the inmates. On those nights, Veronica came to meet them as quickly as she could, using her name and money to barter her way into the games.

She became a witness to the horrible treatment of the kids in the pit, scrawny, bruised, and still forced to fight until one went down in the blood-stained pool. She had yet to see Archie, though every night she went she heard whisperings about him, excitement to see him return. Three weeks from now… two weeks from now… next time... 

Finally, it came to Archie’s fight day. It surprised him to see his friends come together with such an urgency that morning, especially given it was a Friday and they should have been at school. He was even more surprised at their questions about how the guards brought him in to the pits, that he never told them about, and their plan to break him out. 

The rest of the day came in a haze, and as the sun went down, Archie felt detached when the guards retrieved him for the fight. The energy of the pit was different as they paraded Archie through the crowd, the stench of expensive booze and cigar smoke making his growling, empty stomach turn. His eyes scanned the people as they gathered to watch him descend into the pool, many of them hungering with a deadly greed he’d grown accustomed to over the past month.

As he looked over the spectators, he caught the familiar gaze of Veronica, worried yet warm with the mischievous twinkle that told him to trust whatever she was plotting. And he did, wholeheartedly. 

The guards removed the shackles around his wrists as he reached the edge of the abandoned pool. They shoved him between the shoulder blades and he stumbled over the drop, landing sloppily in a 3-point stance. The impact left his sore, bruised muscles straining, but he stood up and faced the opposite end of the makeshift arena.  
As expected, the boy was just as young as him, wrapped in a near head-to-toe black cloak with a hood. He’d never faced The Rogue before, but he’d seen plenty of his victims laid up in the infirmary during his recovery time. They allowed him to jump into the pit instead of being pushed, though Archie could see the pain in his form as he landed, all the weight leaning on one leg. Had this been a real fight, he’d know to use that to his advantage.

Excited cheers burst from the crowd as they faced each other, but the sound droned to a dull hum as The Rogue drew his hood back, revealing the familiar face of Joaquin DeSantos. Scars and bruising crossed his face just like all the other boys Archie fought, but he wouldn’t forget the face of a Serpent.

The sound of a bell echoed through the empty pool, shaking Archie straight through the bone and out of his trance with the reverberation. Joaquin stepped onto his off-foot and feigned a jab at Archie’s chest, which he backpedaled away from with ease. It was more playful than serious, mirroring the smile on Joaquin’s lips.

“Hey, Andrews.”

“Follow me.” Archie whispered, side-stepping his opponent into a flanking position. Joaquin frowned at him, confused by his nervousness.

“What?”

Archie scanned the crowd again to make sure no one heard, but the patrons focused on the swing he launched toward his opponent, missing intentionally, “When you see the smoke, follow me.” He repeated, slower, more seriously to get his point across. With a heavy step, he launched forward onto the drain grate, causing the steel to clatter under his feet as it wobbled in its place. With the momentum, Archie slammed his chest into Joaquin’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around his waist and throwing his opponent down next to their escape route.

There was an echoing pop, a clatter of tin against tile, and a wayward shout as smoke began to creep along the bottom of the pool, filling the pit with obscuring whites and greys from all corners. Joaquin scrambled to his feet at the sight, looking to Archie for instruction as the smoke enveloped them like thick autumn fog.

As soon as his visibility of the audience completely vanished, Archie hopped off the grate and dug his fingers into the drainage holes, pulling up with all his weakened might. The steel was heavy, but Joaquin quickly rushed over a pulled on the edge that Archie lifted out of the hole. Struggling for a moment, they pulled it over the side of the hole, nearly taking Archie’s fingers with it. The steel grate banged loudly against the tile, but it didn’t alert the crowd as they rushed toward the exits above them, ushered by Veronica. 

“Come on, this leads outside!” Archie called to Joaquin, beckoning him to jump down first. He wheezed, and a cough wracked his body as the smoke clogged his mouth and nose. Joaquin hesitated, though, so Archie impatiently grabbed his arm and threw him into the drain pipe below. He landed with a loud thud, and Archie took a deep, wheezing breath as left the smoke swirling above.

The pipe was wide enough for them to walk in single-file, but they had to duck and brace their arms against the walls to get out quickly. It felt like hours while they made their way over spalling concrete and lichen growing through cracks in the old pipe. When Archie’s shoulders and thighs began to shake with the effort of holding himself upright, the hot, damp air, thick with the fetor of moss and fungus, suddenly caught the breeze of the outside forest. Rustling of dried leaves and grasses echoed around the mouth of the pipe when they rounded the turn into the dark forest.

“Archie!” Betty called out as soon as she saw the flash of brilliant red hair emerge into the night. She and Jughead waited next to an old pickup on an old, dusty path, the Serpent logo emblazoned on the truck’s rusting black doors. No time for relieved greetings, they packed Archie and Joaquin into the cramped space and sped off along the back roads of the Southside. 

By sunrise, news of the escape spread throughout the town, along with the alleged suicides of the warden and several guards involved in the fights. Governor Dooley issued temporary pardons by noon at the request of Mayor Hermione Lodge. Though not wholly removed from the system, Archie was finally free. 

That was, until late that night, when most of Riverdale was asleep, each of the four awoke to tapping on their window. A mirror of each other, they all grabbed the closest weapon and slowly got out of bed. In unison, the tapping ceased. There, wedged under each of their window sills, sat identical parchment envelopes, the black gargoyle wax seal too thick to slip under all the way.

Upon opening the envelopes, each found a letter summoning them in two night’s time to the Southside junkyard, where the Gargoyle King awaited their arrival. Through their subterfuge and prison escape, he had noticed them, and it was finally time for initiation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this was very long and very tell-not-show writing for a prologue but the rest of the fic will have better written narrative. Just had to get through that 5 episode chunk to maintain some continuity and canon character development.


	2. Beautiful

Black midnight sky stretched taught about the grasping branches of the Southside treetops, stars fading to nonexistence behind the pale orange glow of the near-full moon. It would be not but a couple days until she was at her peak, and her sinister visage glowered down on the junkyard.

Archie, Betty, Jughead, and Veronica arrived at the back entrance in the old, rusty Serpent pick-up, pointed in the direction by stone-faced Deathknights brandishing torches that threatened to lick the dark, drying bark of early-October trees. The doors screeched and groaned as they hopped out of the truck, the noise deafening in the silence of the midnight forest. Footfall after footfall of players making the journey had smoothed a clear path through the trees.

Archie set off on the path first, eager to confront the man, or thing, that placed a bounty on his head. Betty and Veronica followed close behind him, though, lest he barge into trouble alone. Instinctively they held hands through the mounting fear, while Jughead took up the rear, glancing over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed. Two by two piles of fallen branches, weathered bamboo standing-torches, and aluminum trash cans flicked and sparked along the path. Each accompanied a Deathknight or an Acolyte in full costume; they stared at them behind their masks and under deep hoods. The dull thumping of unseen drums beat against the air to signal the new initiates arriving as they passed through the removed panel in the junkyard fence.

Entering a small clearing, the four spread out side-by-side before a Deathknight in tattered layers of black cotton and jean and a girl in a medieval-style light grey and red dress. She wore a snow-white cloak over both shoulders and a matching veil obscured her face in the low light, as if the ghost of a princess stood before them. From the shadowed alleys between towers of rusted half-cars and ancient appliances, four Deathknights emerged, each carrying lit standing-torches of black iron. They placed one in front of each of the four; Archie, Veronica, Betty, the finally Jughead. The heat from the torches stung the skin of their faces in the bitter autumn night. Betty turned away from the flame proximity, the fire of the torch triggering a hazy dizziness to cloud her senses. She swayed slightly in place, Veronica’s hand in hers and Jughead’s arm finding its way around her shoulders, keeping her from tumbling into the cloudiness of her mind. 

The attention of the four pulled suddenly toward the ghostly girl again as she raised her arms and lifted the layered tulle veil from her face, revealing the familiar visage of their childhood friend, Ethel. 

“Greetings, friends. I’m so glad you can finally join me for Initiation.”

“We didn’t have much of a choice.” Archie bit back, though shock lingered on his face. Betrayal carved a hollow in his chest, cutting deep into the dark recesses of his mind now filled by the trauma sweet and trustworthy Ethel had a hand in creating. From his pocket he pulled the now-crumpled and slightly torn Kill the Red Paladin card. “You’re behind this?”

“No,” Solemnity returned to her face as she answered, the muscles in her hands tensing as she clasped them in front of her, “I wasn’t aware the King had ordered this until the prison break. As a Princess of the King, my quests are specific. I never received a call for that quest.”

“Would you have answered if you did?” Jughead asked, his brow pulled tightly down over his eyes in angry contemplation. He could see the hesitation on her face as she turned toward him, though stubbornness quickly grew in its place. She didn’t answer him, though he held her gaze for a moment longer than she would’ve liked. Jughead suspected the answer was no, but she wouldn’t admit that surrounded by followers of the King. This was a cult, and they’d have her head next.

“Why don’t we begin?” Ethel cleared her throat instead, turning back to the group and clapping her hands. At the sharp signal, the Deathknights that brought forward the torches stepped forward again, presenting the four each with a small case. Leather, palm-sized with a magnetized flap keeping it closed.

An upgrade from the envelope, Veronica thought to herself, the snark a reflex toward her anxiety as she remembered finding the card over a month ago. It felt like years. They took the cases, albeit reluctantly and held them up to the torches to inspect. Snarling gargoyle faces glared up at them from the grey and silver stitching on the back, and the magnetic clasp bore the same symbol as the wax seal on the parchment that summoned them. 

“Within the satchels are the three class choices the King personally chose for you,” Ethel began, the Deathknights retreating to the shadows once more as her posture became serious and professional once again, “Your classes will determine the quests you are assigned and will act as your form of identification. Once you make your choice, burn the others in tribute to the King.”

As she finished speaking, she lifted fistfuls of her long dress and stepped to the side, the silent Deathknight who had remained at her side mirroring her movement in the opposite direction. When they parted, the faint orange glow of torch and open flame illuminated the space behind them, revealing the grotesque effigy of the Gargoyle King; a bull’s skull staring at them with empty eye hollows, bone stained with red spattering, gnarled branches twisting off its back like wings, all draped in a cloak as long and black as the sky above.

Scribblings and paintings they grew familiar with were no match to seeing the effigy in person. It appeared to be sitting, yet still towered over them by 6 inches to a foot. Archie’s face hardened at the sight of the beast, his will to confront the King spoiled now in the monstrosity's presence. Betty looked away; stepping closer to Jughead as her head reeled again. Her stomach churned with the sensation, as if something paranormal were happening here. Even Jughead’s resolution weakened under the sudden pressure. Veronica, however, didn’t succumb to the intimidation. Unsure whether it was because of her experience dealing with powerful, ugly men, or if it really didn’t frighten her, she wasn’t sure, but her posture nor her hatred of the beast before her altered at the sight. 

“Jughead Jones,” The deep, echoing growl of the Deathknight’s voice changer coupled with the morbid effigy startled him out of his awed trance, “The King has chosen you first.”

Jughead cast a long, guarded glance at Betty, the muscles in his shoulders tensing in caution, lest this be a trap. Much like a cat blinking to soothe a loved one, Betty gave him a silent look of encouragement, accompanied by a slight nod. With and understanding, responding nod, Jughead pulled three cards from his leather satchel, fanning them in his fingers to examine each.

The first on the left was the typical Rogue class so many of the Serpents already initiated had chosen, including Joaquin, initiated in the fighting pits, most allured by the thief’s dark clothes, sharp daggers, and the mischievous smirk under his hood. The middle card read “Hellcaster”, depicting a young sorcerer dressed in black and green robes with a serpentine staff. His verdant eyes glowed eerily in the shadow cast by his low-drawn hood. The final card read “Prince,” yet unlike typical medieval nobility, this prince wielded a greatsword and stood clad in intricate black armour. A gold crown sat atop his unarmoured head, two twisting antlers rising out of its sides.

Immediately he did not trust the Prince card; Ethel just claimed she was a Princess not but a few moments ago, and Jughead suspected he would have to be of the same station with this class. He was a king of his own right; he would not kneel for this false God. That was the first card he tossed into the fire.

“State your choice aloud, so the King can hear.” Ethel reminded him, her voice sweeter than it had been, but stern. Jughead looked over the Rogue and the Hellcaster one more time, a near-amused smirk pulling on his lips. He tossed the Rogue into the torch; the serpent iconography of the Hellcaster was too obvious a sign. This card was the one it meant him to pick.

“Hellcaster.” He announced, lifting the card so Ethel, the Deathknight, and the effigy (if it could see) could observe his choice. 

“Welcome, Hellcaster.” The words rose from the spectators, echoing around the Junkyard from shadows between the rusted metal and piles of discarded treasures. Ethel turned to the next initiate, Betty.

She was already looking over her cards as the garbled voice of the Deathknight spoke her name. Cabalist, Deadeye, Acolyte. Fingers trembling, she immediately lifted the Acolyte card to the torch. If she was sure of anything, she would never be a mindless sheep for a fake God.

Pausing, Betty took a grounding breath as the flames consumed the card into the torch, watching for a moment before tearing her eyes back to the remaining cards in her hands. The Deadeye held her at the ready, pointing her knocked arrow straight up at her, while the elderly Cabalist hunched over her sacred texts, glowing runes circling her body. 

A buzz hummed in the back of her mind as a flashback crashed through her, preventing Betty from examining the Deadeye further. The image of her father in a black mask holding a gun forward and staring up at her obscured her perception of the real artwork. Quickly, her reflexes tossed the card into the torch, nerves shaken. Both Jughead and Veronica reached out to her again in her panic to place comforting, grounding hands on her shoulders. Vision fuzzy, hands trembling, Betty pushed through the haze to lift her final card into the air and announce:

“Cabalist.”

“Welcome, Cabalist.” The call echoed around them.

Veronica was next; with a sneer of disgust, she tossed the first card out of the satchel into the fire: Princess. While that was the card she was certain the King wanted her to choose, she had enough of that role in her real life. If she had to play this game, she might as well be someone unlike her rich daddy’s girl reputation.

Pulling the other two cards from the pack, she held one in each hand. The Bard in her left was joyous, laughing with a drink in one hand and their lute in the other. They grinned up at her, happy just being considered and included. In her right, the Enchantress smirked at her with playful mischief; dressed in an oddly familiar black hooded shawl and wreathed in smoke trailing up from the train of her dress. A master of joy and song, or a master of shadow and illusion?

“Enchantress.” She announced confidently, tossing the Bard into the flames. The cardstock fizzled and spat defiant sparks back at her, making Veronica take a step toward Archie, called last after the shadows welcomed her choice.

His case remained unopened until Archie felt his name shake in his bones from the growl of the Deathknight. As he pulled the cards out, the glanced first toward his friends, then to Ethel, who still could not meet his eyes. Confusion warped his face in the firelight.

In his hands he held only two cards, not three like his friends. A familiar Paladin, though this card had etchings of reflective red foil and the deep black foil of a Deathknight with a completely petrified skull of stone. The rustling of dead leaves and branches assaulted their ears suddenly as the effigy rose off the ground. Towering high above them, the gnarled wings stretched wide and the heavy skull twisted on its invisible neck to glare down at Archie specifically. 

“Red Paladin…” The King rumbled, the bass in his amplified voice shaking the ground enough to feel through thick winter boots. “You have one choice. Pledge yourself to me and lift your brand for death.”

Follower or target. Hunter or prey.

Defiant anger flared in Archie’s chest, pulsing hard against his bruised and cracked ribs. A reminder, and a message, “No.”

He crumpled the Deathknight card in his clenched fist and tossed it into the torch flame. With a forced sense of pride, he lifted the Paladin card so everyone could see the orange glow of the fire reflecting off the bloody-coloured foil.

“Then you will die.” The Deathknight warned. Archie detected a hint of alarm despite the disguised sound of his voice. Maybe even desperation.

“We’ll see.”

Ethel cleared her throat to bring the attention back to her, shuffling a few steps forward to stand in the light from the torches.

“Welcome, Initiates. You have chosen your classes and are now waiting to be tested individually on your separate skills. You may be approached by a Deathknight, you may find your quest hidden someone secret. In either case, you will know, and I wish you luck.”

“Go.” The booming voice of the King commanded at their hesitation to leave, the four taking the dismissal to heart and walking as quickly as they could back to the truck. They drove home in silence, the gravity of what they’d done falling on them slowly like snowfall. 

They weren’t players in a game. Now they were cultists.

School the next day felt different. An air of respect now floated through the halls. Where once the spaces and groups barricaded them from entering, now people greeted them openly and genuinely. People brought them into conversation after conversation about Quests, or news of other parties failing, or that someone had broken into more businesses since the start of the school year. Veronica and Jughead shrugged it off easily, making their way through school as if it were a typical day, but the attention was grating and uncomfortable for Betty. 

No one but teachers used her name; now she was ‘the Cabalist.’ Other Cabalists (there were only a few, mostly honors and AP students) excitedly welcomed her to the class, though none of them she’d met before. Though not openly hostile, wizards and sorcerers (seemingly the most common classes chosen) playfully glared at her and made remarks about her study habits. Betty didn’t want to understand what they meant, or why people were so drawn to her suddenly, and by lunchtime, she’d had enough of the socialization shift.

Like every cliche 90s teen movie, she wanted to buy lunch and eat in the restroom, away from the prying eyes and questions of her peers. Food acquired successfully with minimal resistance, Betty swerved out of the cafeteria toward the nearby restrooms where she hit a sudden roadblock. 

Bodies swarmed the walls of the hallway, parting at the center like the Red Sea as awed whispers rose and crashed over the crowd. Slowed but not deterred, Betty muscled her way through the throng, only to emerge on the other side nearly face-to-face with her cousin Cheryl, Toni, and their infamous party. They walked with unbridled confidence through the crowd, basking in the attention Betty despised.

Cheryl and Toni were two of the first players to be open about their involvement in the game, and many players enviously looked up to them. Where once people pried to join the River Vixens, now they pleaded and grovelled to help the Vixens on Quests. The whispers of awe and longing followed them everywhere, even outside the once-safe walls of Riverdale High. If Cheryl wasn’t popular and powerful enough before, her status elevated her to Goddess in their eyes.

“What’s going on here?” The voice of an unseen teacher rose over the hallway, slicing through the audience as they grabbed the attention away from Cheryl. Betty seized the moment of distraction as an opportunity to duck into the restroom. Voices muffled by the closed doors rose in groaning protest as the teacher told them to scatter to their classes. Betty leaned against the door, the drumming of dozens of feet pulsing against the concrete as she finally let out a long breath. She was alone, away from the prying gaze of what felt like the entire town.

Short-lived relief suddenly stamped out of her as the door hit hard at her back, someone pushing it open from the other side. Stumbling forward a few steps, Betty made room in the small space as the heavy door swung open completely and Cheryl stalked her way inside.

“There you are, cousin.” She spoke with her usual friendly grace, a familiar smile on her scarlet-red lips. Where her typical spider brooch would’ve sat on her collarbone, now a crest of golden, crossed arrows reflected the fluorescent lights; the crest of the Deadeye class. Despite wearing her brand, though, no hunger for information nor judgement sat on her face so Betty relaxed slightly at her presence.

“Good afternoon, Cheryl.” Betty side-stepped around her as Cheryl made her way to the mirrors over the sinks to check her hair and makeup. 

“I hear you finally joined the game.” She said cheerfully as she combed wayward strands of orange hair back into their places. Their eyes met through the mirror and Betty nervously started picking at the cellophane wrapper around her sandwich, “And as a Cabalist. Fascinating choice, though I suppose it suits your whole Nancy Drew aesthetic.”

Avoiding answering, Betty took a bite out of the sandwich, chewing slowly so she wouldn’t have to explain how she and her friends never chose to be initiated, and the threats to Archie’s life. Not that it was a secret; everyone knew about Archie’s great escape.

“You know…” Cheryl cut the silence, unbothered by Betty’s lack of an answer, “My party, the Pretty Poisons, received a quest this morning, and we might need a Cabalist if you want to join us sometime.”

Paranoid haze rose at the corners of Betty’s vision at the offer. “Is that… allowed?”

Cheryl frowned, turning to look at her instead of through the mirror. “Why wouldn’t be?”

“I don’t know. I thought you had to stay with the people they initiated you with.” The thought of Archie being placed in the King’s crosshairs because she accidentally broke a rule surged forward, bringing with it a new fear of the game.

“There’s nothing in the Player’s Handbook against it. I mean, how else are we supposed to complete the Quest when we have no Wizards or Cabalists?”  
“Wait… Player’s Handbook?”

“You don’t have one?” Genuine confusion and shock distorted Cheryl’s calm demeanor, and she immediately dismounted the bag from her shoulders. From inside she pulled a stack of papers, three-hole punched and connected by gold rings, “This isn’t all of it, but I can lend you the whole thing if you join us at the entrance to Fox Forest on Friday night?”

Betty took the small stack of papers; the top page was an ancient outline of the Deadeye class, if the game were being played on a tabletop like D&D. The pages weren’t old, but well-used by the wrinkles and bends in the corners. Fatal curiosity peaked, Betty nodded without asking details about the quest,

“All right, I’ll come.”

“Ladies…” The voice of the teacher returned as a warning as she pushed open the door and stuck her head in. “What’s happening here?”

“Betty wasn’t feeling well. I was just helping her.” Cheryl smiled sweetly, tossing her bag over her shoulder again. The teacher looked over her glasses at them, skepticism crawling over every inch of her face. She decided arguing with a Blossom wasn’t worth the time and held the door open for them.

“Just get to class…”

Cheryl gave Betty a wave and skipped into the hallway. How she kept such a bright appearance despite everything she’d endured, Betty didn’t understand. It made her envious, as the anxiety seized her by the throat again when she made her way back toward the cafeteria. At least she had something to study now, a guide on how to navigate and deal with this life-consuming game. Perhaps she’d find something that would break them free from it. Perhaps her life wasn’t over just yet.


	3. Candy Store

Chapter 2: Candy Store

Frosty midnight grasses and leaves crunched underfoot as Betty trekked the sparse paths on the outskirts of town. Occasionally she stopped to adjust the strap of her bag, resting uncomfortably against her shoulder due to the bulky navy cloak she’d taken from the Riverdale High’s theatre department. The silver faux-fur trim itched where it met her neck, and the fabric occasionally snagged on a twig or bramble. Though it slowed her down, Betty arrived at the entrance to the main Fox Forest trails on time, finding Cheryl, Toni, and a couple other Poisons waiting for her a little way into the tree line.

“Betty!” Toni whispered and beckoned as soon as Betty spotted them, pulling her into an alcove in the trees hidden from the view of the unpaved parking lot and road. Seeing the Poisons dressed in leather with black face masks and real weapons on their backs and hips gave Betty pause; she suddenly felt very unprepared and unarmed for what could be a dangerous mission. Her make-shift cabalist costume would not protect against real-world dangers. She’d have to depend on the Poisons for her protection, a fact that became clear to Cheryl as Betty ungracefully slid down the embankment into the alcove.

“Where did you get that ridiculous mantle?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Betty said as she pulled twigs and dead leaves from the faux fur. Brushing the dirt off her bag, she opened it to pull out a leather-bound notebook, old but unused. Thematically, she figured the book fit her role, though the thought she was spoiling such a beautiful book on this nightmare of a game stung a little, “Do you have the mission?”

Cheryl looked to Toni who dug through her many pockets to produce a flattened parchment scroll.

“I couldn’t figure it out. It’s code but I don’t know how to unscramble the letters. I remember how easily you decoded that cipher last year… maybe you can figure it out?”

The vision of FP’s trailer almost exactly a year ago seeped into the corners of Betty’s eyes. She sat with Jughead and Kevin, Toni’s eyes coldly judging her from across the room. In her hands, the parchment flickered to the cipher her father made, a message to her, pleading her to join him.

“Betty?” Toni’s hand on her arm suddenly snapped her mind back to the present, though her head reeled from the flashback. Her daggered gaze was kind now, worried, the air cold instead of stifling.

“Sorry, I’ll see what I can do.” She said weakly as she unrolled the scroll. 

Just like the cards, the word “Quest” took up most of the top of the paper. Below it, two rows of random letters scrawled in hand-written haphazard lines:

GARDYLPE.HWONSIUVKBCFJMQTXZ  
DWK QRS WJU PD.

At first glance the key looked like complete nonsense, which Betty figured was likely the goal, except for the row of three 3x3 grids at the bottom of the page, kindly pre-labeled with grid coordinates along the tops and sides of each square. 

“Can you decipher it?” Toni looked over the paper with genuine curiosity, a stark contrast against Cheryl’s burning impatience looming over them. 

“I think so,” Betty whispered, fumbling through her pocket for her phone, “The grids look familiar.” Turning the light of the screen down so they wouldn’t become a beacon in the dark woods, she thumbed through the pdf of a book of ciphers. It wasn’t thorough, but gave a few basic examples, and it was easy to find the matching row of three grids; a trifid cipher.

Tracing the grids into her notebook, Betty made quick work of filling them in according to the instructions on her phone, assigning each letter in the first row, plus the period, a coordinate string. She then matched those coordinates to the second row of the key and unscrambled the strings, giving her the true letters. Within 10 minutes, “DWK” turned into “LAB”, written and circled at the bottom of her page.

“Lab?” Toni exchanged a puzzled look with Cheryl, “Like a lab in the school?”

“Unless the government is setting up a secret facility reminiscent of Stranger Things in Fox Forest, I don’t know what else it could be.”

“ONN, with two ‘n’s” Betty cut in as she solved the QRS clue. The W in the next block shifted to an E, and while Toni and the Poisons theorized where this lab could be that held their mission, dread crashed through Betty’s bones. She knew what the cipher spelled now, each of the final five characters confirming her suspicions.

LAB ONN ENU IT.

“Lab on e-new it? The hell is that?” Cheryl looked down at the solved quest with disgust.

“La Bonne Nuit.” Betty corrected, though her voice came as a whisper.

“Finally, we’ve gotten somewhere. Poisons?” Cheryl clapped her leather-gloved fingers and threw her bow over her shoulders. The other Poisons gathered their things and followed their leader into the woods, heading back toward town. Toni was the only one who lingered with Betty in the alcove, 

“Are you coming?” 

“I don’t know, why are we going there?” At her side, Betty brought up the dialer on her phone, muting the sound as she hit the button to dial Veronica.

“The King usually wants us to find offerings when He just gives us a location.”

“Like what?” The phone slid into her pocket now. Betty had no idea if Veronica was listening or not; she could only hope her friend wasn’t asleep yet and would get the signal in time.

Toni shrugged, climbing out of the alcove and checking her gear, “Booze, money, passcodes, keys, valuables. Things that are useful.”

“So you’ve done this before?”

“Who do you think has been breaking into buildings since school started?” Toni held out her hand to help Betty up; she took it cautiously but allowed the smaller girl to pull her out of the alcove. As they trudged after Cheryl and the rest of the party, the phone against Betty’s thigh grew uncomfortably warm, and every so often she’d glimpse green and red light shine through the fabric. Someone was listening. Please be Veronica.

Not daring to check her phone, Betty couldn’t tell how long she and Toni stalked through the crisp autumn forest, occasionally stopping to help each other around rocks and fallen trees, or to free Betty’s cloak from brambles and nondescript bushes. The moon was only half-visible over the treetops when they caught up to the rest of the party, lingering in the trees outside the back parking lot of Pops’. A single light above the back entrance spilled over the asphalt and into the brush, but there were no signs of life around the diner this late at night.

“There you sluggards are. The newbie didn’t want to come?” Cheryl chided with impatience still plastered on her face. 

“Be nice.” Toni shot her a look as she passed, the words barely audible though the quiet forest amplified them to Betty’s ear. 

“Excuse me for hesitating, we’re just stealing from my best friend’s business.” Betty retorted. Her legs hurt with exhaustion and needed sleep leaked into her muscles at this hour. She wasn’t in the mood for Cheryl’s mean-girl act tonight. 

“Are we gonna have a problem?” Impatience melted like ice from Cheryl’s face, fiery anger surging in its place. Her voice was too loud with the outburst, and the Poisons immediately snapped to alter positions, eyes glancing around the building and fingers lingering on hidden weapons. 

“Cheryl!” Toni warned, voice a contrasting urgent whisper. 

“No, if Betty has a bone to pick after coming this far, she should know the consequences. We take these missions seriously. Maybe it’s a game to you, but there’s no backing out for us. We can’t just waltz home and sleep peacefully without following orders. You’re a Poison now, or you’re an enemy.”

Betty found herself unable to pay attention as Cheryl talked at her. The words entered her ears but became lost on the way to her brain as a deep fog filled the wiring of her mind. Her nerves tingled as if she were falling, or the ground were spinning rapidly around her, and her vision became blurred black. The sensation was unsettling, but familiar, especially since her father’s imprisonment. Yet usually Jughead or Veronica or Archie were with her to ground her as the dissociation overwhelmed her senses. Here in the deep night woods there were no warm hands to grab her and keep her from floating away.

“You’re an enemy” leaked through the fog, echoing into the hearing processing center of her brain. She shook her head, clearing enough of the fog to mutter, 

“I’m not your enemy.”

Her vision came to at the point of a knocked arrow, the arrowhead bright scarlet even in the silver moonlight. Cheryl’s still-fuming face glared at her from the other end of the shaft. The image sat hauntingly familiar in her mind, the hazy memory of a Dead-Eye card in flames and an even more distant lingering image of her father glaring at her behind a gun conjured at the corners of her awareness.

“Go unlock the door.” Cheryl ordered, shouting the oncoming flashback away with her words. Though Betty was used to macyvering her own picks, a proper steel pick and torsion wrench slipped into her palm from Toni’s fingers. She pushed her way between Cheryl and Betty, giving Betty a shield to side-step out of the brush and onto the parking lot. 

Pins and needles sparked sharply in her feet as the rest of her body shook off the dissociation, remembering how sore and tired her muscles were. Still, Betty hobbled halfway across the small lot before her legs locked in fear, motion-detecting light suddenly pooling around her, wreathing her in brilliant white. The light hummed faintly in the quiet, the sound drowned out by the panic roaring in her ears while she waited for alarms to blare. Or sirens. She didn’t know which would be better.

None came and eventually her legs unlocked, allowing her to stumble to the shadows clinging to the wall of the diner. Familiarity took her muscles, guiding her to the locked door. The lock inside the doorknob was not complex, and with only a little pressure and a couple audible clicks, she could thrust the heavy concrete door open. The hinges creaked as Betty let the door swing for a moment, waiting to hear voices or footsteps approach. Still, no noise came from the building. 

The Poisons joined her, moving silent and stealthy around the parking lot, weaving through the shadows in more expert patterns than she could have even thought to do. A sharp whistle met her ear as an arrow materialized embedded into the wooden steps just inside the door. The Poisons froze around her, allowing Cheryl to enter the building first, not without a sneer in Betty’s direction. Toni followed, and Betty shuffled in after the other members, keeping her eyes on the woods until the door closed. 

The steps to the speakeasy squeaked, the tiny stairwell illuminated by faint strips of orange light installed in the spaces between the wood panelling. Betty had to blink as Toni flicked the lights in the speakeasy on, flooding the room in warm yellow-white. With a smirk Cheryl turned toward her party, gestured grandly to the nearly finished La Bonne Nuit, and said in a familiar sing-song tone,

“Well ladies, welcome to the candy store.”

Immediately the party split up, searching for anything expensive-looking or useful construction bits. Cheryl and Betty were the only ones who didn’t move; the smirk on Cheryl’s scarlet lips faded to a sour pout,

“At least make yourself useful and look for a safe. Shouldn’t be that hard to find if you know your friend.” The words stung. The thought of stealing from Veronica turned her stomach. Yet if Cheryl didn’t kill her for refusing to help, the Gargoyle King would. She should have never agreed to help the Poisons. 

“It’s under the drinks display.” She said, motioning to where she’d seen it installed a few weeks before, “I don’t know the code.” While Veronica trusted her, she was still quite a private person and wouldn’t have given her that information. Understandably so, given her family. Violating that trust added extra salt to her fresh wounds. 

“What are you here for if not to crack codes?” Cheryl stepped out of her way, the Poisons gathering around again with handfuls of spare copper wiring, rolls of light strips, and tools left abandoned at the end of the previous work day. They were practically breathing down her neck as she stepped behind the bar and crouched low to slide open the cabinet door hiding the safe away. 

The safe was fairly stereotypical; a square of heavy, dark steel wedged into the cabinet so no one could remove it without dismantling the surrounding wood. However, instead of the traditional dial that looked like it should rest in the center of the door, an electric lock and a keypad waited for her. As the safe was brand new, there was no visible wear on the number pads, and the buttons were firm to the touch when she dragged her knuckle over them. No visual indication of the password.

Blinking lines on the green LCD screen showed a twelve digit solution, too long for a birthday, or anniversary, or pin code. Betty frowned, wracking her brain for a number that length Veronica could have chosen.

“Has anyone seen a 12-digit number anywhere?” She asked aloud, hoping that perhaps there was a universal code they used on missions, but everyone shook their head. Must be a challenging cipher then. Betty considered pulling the code book up on her phone again, no 12-digit ciphers coming to mind. Except…. The clue that brought them there.

Four sets of three letters made up the clue, 12 numbers in totals if she added each set together. Pulling the book out of her bag, she quickly added the numbers that designated each letter of “La Bonne Nuit.”.

645 655 656 777

A long beep rang from the lock as she pressed the enter button, followed by the click of magnets releasing inside. The door swung outward and she opened it slowly, met with a rather unremarkable stash. 4 rolls of coins as starter change sat in the corner, weighing down a blueprint of the building and a couple bank statements. Betty let out a sigh of relief, glad she wouldn’t be taking anything of major value. She passed the rolls of coins to the nearest Poison and collected the blueprint for herself, slipping it into her bag as she pushed away the recognition that she was stealing from her best friend. 

As she did so, however, another paper slipped from the very bottom of the safe, settling discreetly on the floor at her knees. Looking back quickly to make sure none of the girls were watching anymore, Betty lifted the paper into just enough light to read it. A tear consumed the top left corner and the contents were difficult to decipher due to wrinkles and smearing from fresh liquid.

FAKE

Written in bright red, blotchy ink scrawled across most of the page. The paper was thin under the bright paint, made recent enough that Betty avoided touching it lest she become literally red-handed. Carefully, she brought the page closer to her face, squinting to read the smeared letters through the ink. 

Photocopied given the poor quality of ink, Betty tried her best to scan through line by line, growing more and more confused. It seemed to be a building deed, likely to Pops’ as Veronica’s legal signature scrawled across a line at the bottom. But why would someone label this as fake so aggressively? So obviously that there was no way someone could miss it. And where was the real version of not here, in the building's safe the deed belonged to?

“Betty! Are you coming?” She jumped as Toni called her name, hauling her out of her concentration. With haste, she shoved the sopping copy paper into a secluded pocket of her bag and shut the safe door. The electromagnet lock took a moment to click back on, and only then did she close the cabinet and get to her feet. 

As she stood to follow the Poisons up the stairs, the dull glow of her phone screen caught her attention through her pocket. It displayed two text messages at the top of the screen.

“On our way” from Veronica. Received 20 minutes ago.  
“Stall, around the corner.” from Veronica. Received 1 minute ago.

“Come on, Cabalist.” Cheryl growled from the stairs, the glare back in her eyes.

That’s when the rumbling of speeding tires cut through their heist for the first time that night.


End file.
